Valluvan’s Wisdom and His Immortal Couplets

An introduction to Valluvan and his Thirukural

Tamil scholars and students alike consider Kamban, Valluvan and Ilango the three greatest writers of Tamil literature. Kamban was honoured by the Chola king with the title of Kavi Chakravarthy, ‘the emperor of poets’. His literary works include the Tamil version of the Ramayana. Valluvan was a great poet and philosopher. His most famous work is the Thirukural. Ilango was a monk and a poet. It is believed that he was a brother of the great Chera king, Senguttuvan. Ilango wrote the Silappathikaram, the most famous of the five great Tamil epics. In a poem glorifying Tamil Nadu, modern Tamil's greatest poet, Subramaniya Bharathi, praises it as ‘the land of Kamban, Valluvan and Silappathikaram’.

We are back from a summer of travel, reading, research and learning with writer Vijay Santhanam’s introduction to Valluvan and his Thirukural. Many thanks to him for this article.

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When Twitter was launched in 2006, people wondered how meaningful and substantial content could be expressed in merely 140 characters. My spontaneous reaction was that the great Tamil poet and philosopher Valluvan had already done so eloquently with his kurals or couplets over fifteen hundred years ago!

Here is a model example of one of Valluvan’s kurals:

44 characters including spaces in Tamil; 67 in English translation. This is far beyond mere content; it is wisdom distilled. And what’s more, there are three types of Tamil poetry rhyme schemes in the articulation! Any doubt that a meaningful and substantial message can be conveyed within 140 characters (or less!) should simply vanish. (I will refer to this model kural throughout the article and therefore request you to please keep it in mind.)

The former Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who presented many budgets starting from 1996, typically used to end his speech with a kural. The current Indian FM Nirmala Sitharaman too recited a kural in her 2021 budget speech: A king/ruler is the one who creates and acquires wealth, protects and distributes it for common good.

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VALLUVAN

We know very little about Valluvan’s personal life. Opinion is divided even on when he lived—according to some, he lived as early as c.300 BCE, while others say he lived around 500 CE. More scholars tend to believe that he lived closer to the later period; hence my conservative statement that he wrote his couplets over fifteen hundred years ago.

Commemorative postage stamp issued by the Government of India in 1960. (The original image is a copyrighted work of the Government of India, licensed under the Government Open Data License - India, and may be used for all lawful commercial and non-commercial purposes. More information here.)

Again, there is no certainty regarding his birthplace or where he lived. However, there are reasonable grounds to conclude that he likely lived in Mylapore (a part of central Chennai today) and the city of Madurai, both in Tamil Nadu, for some part of his life with his wife, Vasuki.

There is also debate on his religion: he could have been either Jain or Hindu. And if it is accepted that he was Hindu, then his caste becomes a matter of disagreement. Such controversies are unfortunate. Frankly, these matters are not important in my view. What matters is his work, which has stood the test of time. His pithy and wise advice is relevant even today, not just in Tamil Nadu or in India, but across the world. His kurals have been translated into more than twenty major languages, Indian and non-Indian, and the Thirukural remains the single most frequently translated work of Tamil literature.

THE THIRUKURAL

Valluvan’s Thirukural covers three major domains: aram(virtue), porul(wealth) and imbam(love). It consists of 133 chapters differentiated by topic, with ten couplets in each chapter. The overarching theme is ethics and morality, and how to live. Within this, various chapters cover love, family life, gratitude, friendship, economy, politics, government and more.

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THE KURAL IN THE CONTEXT OF CLASSICAL TAMIL POETRY

In classical Tamil poetry, there are many poetic forms such as akaval, kalippa, paripatal, pannatti, venpa, and viruttam. The venpa is one of the most common forms. It follows clear rules of versification and both metre and rhyme are important. In this form, the first three lines have four seers each, and the fourth line has three seers. (A seer is a metrical foot; for the sake of simplicity, we can think of a seer as being represented by a word—though a seer is not exactly a word.) That’s about the metre.

Now, let us consider rhyme. There are many types of rhyme in Tamil poetry:

Edigai:

• adi (or ‘line’) edigai: the second letter of the first line and the second letter of the second line is the same

• seer edigai: the second letter of seers in the same line is the same

Monai:

• adi (or ‘line’) monai: the first letter of the first line and first letter of the second line is the same

• seer monai: the first letter of seers in the same line is the same; this is like alliteration in English.

Muran: if a word is used first in the poem, and its antonym is used later. We will see an example later in the discussion.

Iyaibu: words ending with the same letters and/or the same sound, like in most common rhymes in English poetry. We will see an example later in the discussion.

Valluvan revolutionized the venpa: he shortened it to two lines and created the idea of kurals (couplets) with four seers in the first line and three seers in the second (last) line. Though he created a new form of Tamil poetry, he stuck with the classic venpa rhyme rules.

Let us look again at the couplet I shared earlier:

There are three types of rhymes here:

1. The second letter of both lines is the same, ற் (hard ‘r’)—this is adi edigai rhyme.

2. The second letter of three seers in the first line is the same, ற்—this is seer edigai rhyme.

3. In this particular couplet, Valluvan has also used monai in the first line: all four seers start with the letter க (‘k’).

Let us consider an example of muran, from another kural:

pukazh means ‘fame’ or ‘praise’; ikazh, which means ‘to despise’ or ‘contempt’, is its antonym.

Note that besides muran in this couplet, there is also adi edigai (the second letter of both lines is the same).

Finally, let us look at an example of iyaibu—from the first verse of Bharathi’s famous poem on Tamil Nadu:

Bharati has used iyaibu not only in the first and second lines, but in the third and fourth lines too.

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MY FAVOURITE KURALS

Valluvan’s couplets are rich and nuanced. Therefore, there is a lot of room for interpretation. Let me take the model couplet again and share the interpretations of three Tamil scholars: M. Varadarajan, Solomon Pappaiah and M. Karunanidhi. All three focus on ‘faultless learning’ in the kural, but Karunanidhi’s nuance is that one should know the errors in the process of learning and correct them, thus ensuring that the learning is thorough.

There is a bigger difference in interpretation. The first two scholars emphasize ‘good books’ as a key source of learning. I have difficulty in accepting this because it is limiting. I believe that Valluvan’s view of learning would have been beyond bookish knowledge and would have taken into account overall life experiences. Karunanidhi doesn’t mention ‘good books’ or books at all in his take. My own interpretation is much closer to Karunanidhi’s with regard to this particular couplet.

Let me take another example, the very first kural of the Thirukural, which is seemingly simple:

The alphabet starts with A—similarly
The world starts with God

M. Varadarajan and Solomon Pappaiah give the simple, easy interpretation; in fact, we could argue that almost no interpretation is needed. But Karunanidhi, a staunch atheist, has a different interpretation: Just as ‘A’ is the primary letter, God is every life in the world, and that is primary. In this case, my own interpretation is the same, simple one that M. Varadarajan and Solomon Pappaiah give.

Beyond multiple interpretations in Tamil, there are many translations of the kurals available in other languages, with varying interpretations!

As you can see, on the one hand, I am in the unenviable position of having taken on the rather difficult task of writing an article on Valluvan; but on the other hand, I am in the enviable position of being able to share my favourite kurals with my own interpretation, the one that’s etched in my mind. All translations in this article (unless otherwise stated) are mine. However, I have not translated the kurals word for word. Instead, I have chosen to adopt a style that makes it easier for the non-Tamil speaker to understand the content and context. Where the English couplets are not self-explanatory or when more depth is needed, I elaborate so that the reader can better appreciate the couplet.

So, here, then, are my favourite kurals.

Numbers and letters
Numbers are important, so are letters—value both
Like the two eyes we have

Size doesn’t matter
Don’t mock people’s physical stature: a mighty chariot
Can’t run well without the lynch-pin in its axle

Farming
Those who till the land for a living, lead the world
The rest should respect them, follow behind

This is valid even today, more than fifteen hundred years later. Whilst top-end chips that drive AI may be in great demand, foodgrains remain critical. We only need to remember what happened to the availability and prices of wheat when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Sweet words and harsh words
When sweet words are available, using harsh ones is
Like plucking unripe fruits when ripe ones are ready

A wound caused by fire may heal internally over time, but
A scar caused by a tongue lashing will never heal

Beyond forgiving

For those who harm us, the best punishment is shame—
Shower them with good deeds

Hospitality
A scarlet pimpernel fades merely by human breath; if a
Host’s face changes, it makes the guest’s spirit wither

Hospitality is an intrinsic part of Indian culture and tradition. In India, atithi devo bhava, the guest is equivalent to God. It is therefore no surprise that Valluvan dedicated a chapter on this topic.

Timely help
Help rendered in a timely manner, even if it is small,
Is bigger than the whole planet

Lack of gratitude, the worst sin
Any wrong deed may be pardoned except
Forgetting help rendered to someone

No dam can contain the flow of love
Can any bolt and latch shut the doors to love? A tiny tear
In an eye will reveal the misery felt by a loved one

Friendship
If a garment slips, the hand rushes spontaneously to hold it up. Similarly
Rushing to help one in distress is a sign of friendship

The best melody
The flute is sweet, the lute is melodious, say those
Who have not heard their own babies’ babble

Mother’s pride and son’s gratitude towards his father
For a mother to hear her son being called noble
Is greater joy than when she begot him

A son’s gratitude to his father is when he wows others, and the father
Wonders, “What penance did I do to beget him!?”

I shared the first kural earlier in the article. It is only appropriate that I end with the last kural, the 1330^th. Here it is, from the kama section.

A lovers’ tiff is great foreplay – then, the tight embrace
Enhances the pleasure in lovemaking

I hope this article gave the readers who haven’t read Valluvan’s work a glimpse of his wisdom, and for those who have read him, another chance to reminisce.

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More by Vijay Santhanam on Fish:
My Bharathi: an introduction to modern Tamil's greatest poet, Subramaniya Bharathi

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